


Nothing's gonna change destiny

by Ex-Genesis (orphan_account)



Category: Disney RPF
Genre: Angsy, F/M, Incest, M/M, Pre-Slash, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-02
Updated: 2010-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-10 23:33:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/471961
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Ex-Genesis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He never meant for it to happen, but it's real, and it's thick around him, constricting and Joe wishes he could save him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing's gonna change destiny

The cold finger tips that trail down his spine and curl around his lumbar vertebrae, ice in the notches of his bones, is the sound of her voice as she tells him. It's the exact opposite of the hot fingertips of her hand slipping over his bare chest, over the muscles defined on his stomach. The fire that rages low in his stomach as she breathes ragged over him, moist against his neck as he bites his lower lip and lets his eyes get blown so wide they can do nothing more than fall closed for what feels like hours. Only actual moments until she rolls off the top of him and only a half an hour later, they were both asleep on the couch they were just going to kiss on.  
  
She's pregnant. Nick never meant for it to happen, but sometimes he catches himself wondering if he didn't pray too hard to have a kid someday. What if God just answered a prayer and showed him the meaning of 'consequence' all at the same time. Cruel, but swift and effective as a God whose wrath has been warned against for ages. At times, Nick can do nothing more than admire his God's handiwork. What a disastrous miracle, a mind-numbing blessing.  
  
Three hours after he, himself finds out, he tells someone. Two and a half of those hours, he'd been sitting with her on that very couch, arms around her stomach, palms laid flat over the top like he might feel part of himself inside of her, witness movement of a spirit being given form. Trying not to cry, he hears, and respectfully ignores the sniffles coming from her, but holds her tighter, protectively with every tremble. She's lost, and he knows where she is because he's there too, but he's just as lost, and really, it would make no difference if he weren't there. The last half hour he spent driving home, making wrong turn after wrong turn because God forgive him, he can't handle this and he can't focus. He can't breathe for all of the gasping he's doing as he's sucking in the tears, wiping at them with shaking hands. He's afraid he'll get in a car wreck, so sometimes a lone tear will slide down his cheek, and he'll feel weak and helpless, and he'll hold his lungs closed until they burn. He's not ready to be a father.  
  
It's Joe. Once he's in the house, he hugs his mother, he hugs his father who, taken aback, hugs back loosely and blinks away the astounded look he knows appeared on his face. Nick hugs Frankie, and he nearly sobs when he takes Kevin's hand in both of his own and just holds it between them. Even as he's trying not to, his eyes must express something, because Kevin pulls him in for a real hug, long and needed, but suffocating. When Kevin lets go, he just nods his head and knocks a few fingers gently against Nick's jaw. Nick doesn't say anything though, not until he gets to Joe's room and knocks.  
  
That's the first thing that sets Joe off. While Nick is always wary of others, gives them their personal space because he likes his own fairly well, Nick doesn't knock on Joe's door. Joe thinks it's someone else at first, so he asks who it is, because they knocked, so might as well see what the deal is, but when Nick answers (answers twice because the first time, no sound actually comes out), Joe's off his bed in a heartbeat and opens the door to pull Nick in by the collar of his shirt. As he shuts the door, he asks Nick what happened and Nick folds in on himself at first, arms tight around his stomach as his back bends forward as someone with a yoke to bear, a cross on their shoulders. Joe catches him quick though before Nick can crumble to the ground. Instead he melts into his older brother and Joe lets him sob, as he pushes away the tight feeling in his gut, the tugging at his heart, the strain on his eyes as they burn with the need to cry too; his shirt's getting wet.  
  
"I'm so sorry," bubbles up from within him and Joe just shakes his head as his hand runs over Nick's hair. Almost immediately, Joe has it all figured out and it hurts him, a cut that's warm with blood rushing to escape, but he just covers it up while he tends to his little brother. This isn't about him; it's about Nick, and a baby, and a girl Joe doesn't think Nick's in love with, which Nick later confirms after Joe lays them down on the bed and Nick pushes his closed, wet eyes into the comforting skin and muscle of his older brothers' neck. Joe cradles him and tries to think of positive things to say, but every time he opens his mouth to say something, there's a twist in his stomach that turns him so much he forgets.  
  
When Nick stops crying, it's only because he's asleep. That's when Joe stops holding back, and cries himself to sleep too. He didn't realize Nick meant so much to him. He  _did_ , but he  _didn't_ . Not only is he worried about Nick, his baby brother who's becoming a dad, who's got a girl to take care of and probably marry if his parents have anything to say about it (even though everyone knows his parents are so in love that they should understand it'd be wrong). Nick's just a kid, when Joe thinks about it, and all Joe wants to do is protect him from everything that must have happened that night. He's sure now, that Nick's been eating up from the inside out for a while now, that he's been keeping it in, and that finding out how truly wrong he was, because of something so beautiful - that must have been the last thing Nick could take.  
  
He's worried about Nick. And he's worried about the fact that he's in love with his little brother, and how many times in a mere second he considers taking this upon himself whether Nick likes it or not, just to keep him safe from just one more thing. Joe wasn't there to keep him from making the initial mistake, but he wonders if he couldn't prevent this alternate reality Nick created from happening. From happening to him at least. If Joe could take it, he would take it upon himself. He knows Nick won't let him, that Nick's baby wouldn't deserve being deprived such a good man for a father.  _Nick's having a baby_ .  
  
Waking up, Joe's pretty sure he cried even in his sleep, because he feels dry and drained, and his eyes hurt so much he might have gotten a foreign chemical in them. Nick doesn't wake up for another twenty minutes when Joe finally can't take the ache of his arms, unnaturally wrapped around his body. When Nick looks up into Joe's eyes, his own red around the big brown in the center, Joe feels his own heart break with how much he loves Nick.  
  
Nick forgets that he's not five years old and even though he's stronger than Joe and his muscles show through his shirt, he hugs Joe so tight Joe thinks he might be suffocating, but he inhales deep and sound when Nick lays his head back down over his chest, ear pressed close. He can't hear any way to fix this in the beating of Joe's heart, but Nick feels his own stutter when Joe lets himself kiss the top of his brothers' head and tells him he loves him, and that he's proud of him. He can't see how, or why, but he knows it's true, and even though he feels completely torn in half, ripping apart veins that once made a path through him, Nick thinks that maybe as long as Joe still believes in him, this might be - it might be okay.


End file.
